Public Relations Theory

10Community

Marina Vujnovic and Dean Kruckeberg

In a world in which market values and profit‐driven practices rule decision‐making on every level of society, proposals to consider the impact of our actions on community are considered to be naive. However, through the processes of globalization in the past several decades, our lives have become more interconnected. Because of the impact of new technologies, our actions (if not always, then at least often) impact the lives of people and communities throughout the globe. Many organizations in the private and nonprofit sectors are beginning to recognize the immense need to acknowledge the impact that they have on various stakeholders worldwide. When organizations do acknowledge their impact, they nevertheless seldom understand how they can and should become active participants in their communities through community‐building or by fostering deliberation and influencing change by building organic relationships with stakeholders everywhere. The idea of social capital and working for the common good are often seen in stark opposition to market capitalism. For those reasons, nonprofit organizations have historically played a larger role in advocating for the common good than have for‐profit organizations. However, we believe that it is the responsibility of every organization to view society as that organization’s ultimate stakeholder.

Recently, community‐building has been used as synonym for community development, community relations, ...